Name: At DNC, Obama says Trump using presidency like a ‘reality show’ to get ‘the attention he craves’
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At DNC, Obama says Trump using presidency like a ‘reality show’ to get ‘the attention he craves’

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Former President Barack Obama delivered an unsparing attack on President Donald Trump at the virtual , accusing his successor of using the nation’s highest office to help himself and his friends, and treating the presidency like a “reality show” to get “the attention he craves.” Speaking from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia under the convention night’s theme of “A more perfect union,” Obama accused Trump of failing to take the job seriously, resulting in a massive death toll due to the pandemic, job and economic losses, and a diminished U.S. standing around the world. Advertisement “He’s shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves,” Obama told a national prime-time audience. “Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe: 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed. Our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before,” Obama said. Advertisement Obama’s remarks were his sharpest and most direct attacks on Trump since leaving office after two terms in 2017. It represents the latest evolution of the former hometown president’s decision to go harder on Trump as the election approaches. And just as Trump has upended many norms in the office, Obama’s speech reflects a decision to dispense with the long-standing tradition that has largely had former presidents remain silent about their successors. Obama was under no illusions that Trump, upon taking over, would continue with his policies or embrace his vision of the country. But Obama said he hoped “for the sake of the country” that Trump would take the job seriously and feel the weight of the office and have some reverence “for the democracy that had been placed in his care.” “But he never did,” the former president said. In anticipation of Obama’s criticism, Trump said at a White House news conference earlier Wednesday that his Democratic predecessor was “bad” and “ineffective.” “President Obama did not do a good job, and the reason I am here is because of President Obama and Joe Biden,” Trump told reporters. “Because if they did a good job, I wouldn’t be here, and probably if they did a good job, I wouldn’t have even run. I would have been very happy, I enjoyed my previous life very much. But they did such a bad job that I stand before you as president,” the president said. Vouching for the Democrats’ 2020 nominee, Biden, the former Delaware senator who Obama tapped to be his running mate in 2008, the former president said that in his search for a vice presidential candidate, “I didn’t know I’d end up finding a brother.” “Joe and I came from different places and different generations. But what I quickly came to admire about Joe Biden is his resilience, born of too much struggle; his empathy, born of too much grief,” Obama said. “Joe is a man who learned early on to treat every person he meets with respect and dignity, living by the words his parents taught him: ‘No one’s better than you, Joe, but you’re better than nobody,’” the former president said. “That empathy, that decency, that belief that everybody counts, that’s who Joe is.” Biden, Obama said, “made me a better president” and has got “the character and the experience to make us a better country.” It was Obama’s fifth consecutive address to the Democratic National Convention, the first occurring in 2004 when he delivered the keynote speech in Boston as a U.S. senator from Illinois. That speech, seeking unity and to deny a pundit-driven divide between “red states” and “blue states” and “liberal America” and “conservative America,” was widely regarded as propelling him to the White House four years later. Advertisement Seeking to bestow his continued popularity among Democrats on behalf of Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, Obama said both have the ability to “lead this country out of dark times and build it back better.” Of Biden’s choice of Harris, Obama called her an “ideal partner, who is more than prepared for the job, someone who knows what it’s like to overcome barriers and someone who has spent their career fighting to help others live out their American Dream.” Together, Obama said, Biden and Harris “believe that no one, including the president, is above the law, and that no public official, including the president, should use their office to enrich themselves or their supporters. “They understand that in this democracy, the commander in chief does not use the men and women of our military, who are willing to risk everything to protect our nation, as political props to deploy against peaceful protesters on our own soil. They understand that political opponents aren’t un-American just because they disagree with you; a free press isn’t the enemy, but the way we hold officials accountable; that our ability to work together to solve big problems like a pandemic depend on a fidelity to facts and science and logic, and not just making stuff up,” he said. Obama said those concepts shouldn’t be controversial or partisan, but American principles. “But at this moment, this president and those who enable him have shown they don’t believe in these things,” he said. The former president urged the public, particularly the younger generation, to reject Trump and Republicans “who are counting on your cynicism.” “They know they can’t win you over with their policies, so they’re hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote and convince you that your vote does not matter. That is how they win,” he said. “That is how they get to keep making decisions that affect your life and the lives of the people you love. That’s how the economy will keep getting skewed to the wealthy and the well-connected, how our health systems will let more people fall through the cracks,” he said. “That’s how a democracy withers until it’s no democracy at all, and we cannot let that happen. Do not let them take away your power. Do not let them take away your democracy.” Still, even as he promoted Biden’s candidacy, Obama warned, “No single American can fix this country alone. Not even a president.” “So I am also asking you to believe in your own ability — to embrace our own responsibility as citizens — to make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure. Because that’s what’s at stake right now. Our democracy,” he said. “This administration has shown it will tear our democracy down, if that’s what it takes for them to win,” Obama said. “So we have to get busy building it up by pouring all our efforts into these 76 days and voting like never before, for Joe and Kamala, and candidates up and down the ticket, so that we leave no doubt about what this country that we love stands for today and for all our days to come.” Advertisement David Axelrod, who served as Obama’s top political strategist, said critics who think the former president is “fighting to protect his ‘legacy’” misread him and the moment. Advertisement “He’s fighting to protect our democracy against the assault of a @POTUS who, unlike his predecessors of EITHER party, simply doesn’t believe in its rules, laws, norms or institutions,” tweeted Axelrod, using the acronym for president of the United States to refer to Trump. Obama has become more strident toward Trump and his presidency in recent months, publicly criticizing his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and telling donors in remarks leaked to the New York Times that the president played on “nativist, racist, sexist” fears. Delivering the eulogy for the late civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat, in Atlanta on July 30, but on issues of race and voting. “George Wallace may be gone. But we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators,” Obama said. He was referring to the late former racist governor and third-party presidential candidate from Alabama. “But even as we sit here, there are those in power doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting — by closing polling locations, and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws, and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the Postal Service in the run-up to an election that is going to be dependent on mailed-in ballots so people don’t get sick.” Obama showed his disdain for Trump during the 2016 race for president when Hillary Clinton, his secretary of state, vied against the Republican to be his successor. Trump had adopted the “birther” conspiracy that wrongly claimed Obama was born in Kenya. Trump as president later pushed what he called “Obamagate,” claiming an illegal conspiracy by Obama-era officials to investigate and sabotage his presidency. That prompted Obama to become more active in the 2018 midterm elections. Speaking at the in September of that year, Obama called Trump “a symptom, not the cause” of “a fear and an anger that’s rooted in our past” involving racial and economic divisions that have been exploited by politicians for years. “Appealing to tribe, appealing to fear, pitting one group against another, telling people that order and security will be restored if it weren’t for those who don’t look like us, or don’t sound like us or don’t pray like we do — that’s an old playbook. It’s as old as time. And, in a healthy democracy, it doesn’t work,” Obama said. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement

Former President Barack Obama delivered an unsparing attack on President Donald Trump at the virtual , accusing his successor of using the nation’s highest office to help himself and his friends, and treating the presidency like a “reality show” to get “the attention he craves.” Speaking from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia under the convention night’s theme of “A more perfect union,” Obama accused Trump of failing to take the job seriously, resulting in a massive death toll due to the pandemic, job and economic losses, and a diminished U.S. standing around the world....

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The Chicago Tribune is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most-read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. It had the 6th highest circulation for American newspapers in 2017.

At DNC, Obama says Trump using presidency like a ‘reality show’ to get ‘the attention he craves’

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